


Snake in the Grass

by HostisHumaniGeneris



Category: Original Work
Genre: Attempt at Humor, F/M, Monsters are people too, Sword & Sorcery, snake people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:07:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29953866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HostisHumaniGeneris/pseuds/HostisHumaniGeneris
Summary: He had failed in his quest to rescue the princess, the only captive of the wizard's a serpent woman.  He would report his failure to the king, and then move on to some other land, attempt to fight his way into legend some other way.  Yet somehow, the residents of the castle seemed amused as he explained his new companion might have some sort of intelligence regarding the whereabouts of the princess's daughter.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4
Collections: Teratophilia Trade 2021





	Snake in the Grass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Silex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/gifts).



“The King’s an old guy.” Goll said, splashing frigid water in his face and bare chest. Huddled by the fire, his companion shuddered under the collection of furs she was practically buried under. “Might not be happy I dragged you to his throne room. But I figure, we haven’t found the princess, but if we show him there’s a few leads to follow up on…”

“Not quite the way to talk of a monarch.” She growled.

He shrugged, kneeling at the edge of the frigid stream. “Never been one for royals, myself. I respect that he earned his throne.”

The Old King had been an adventurer in his youth. Earned his throne by dealing with _something_ —these Southerners and their language wasn’t _quite_ his forte. Slayed a ferocious serpent, if he understood correctly—the banners around the castle appointed with images of snakes made some sense then.

“And yet you want to be a royal.” She said. A black forked tongue slipped between her jaws.

“One who earned his way.” He repeated. He buried his face in the frigid water, and when he came up for air the pile of furs _cringed_. Taking a deep breath as the water ran down, he glumly added. “That was the point of this whole quest. I promised the old man I’d have his daughter back to him by the next full moon. There was some court fortune teller who prophesied that a great warrior would rescue Princess Atroxa in her time of need and gain her hand. But the trail went cold.”

Goll didn’t care much about looking presentable, most of the time. _But_ he had a feeling about today. The King was an old warrior. Equal emphasis on both ‘old’ and ‘warrior’. He had a feeling that he would not take the news that this proud barbarian who had waltzed into his throne room and announced he would rescue the daughter from the wizard with a name with far too many syllables would be pleased to be told that _no_ , his daughter was not actually in that ebony tower of woe, even if a _lot_ of sorcerors and bandits were cleaved in twain.

“Cold.” She repeated. “How can you _even do that_? This is the worst winter in years.”

“Worst winter… for this land.” Goll grinned as strode close to her, standing by the fire. She was staring at him, noticed he noticed she was staring, and quickly looked back at the stream he’d been washing off in. “Living this far South thins the blood. People here don’t know cold. Besides, we have a meeting with royalty. Should try to look at least somewhat presentable.”

“If this were summer you’d be melting.” She said, turning to look at him out the corner of a large, yellow eye.

She made good company—she obviously was not a local, but she knew the land fairly well. “Well, assuming I make it to summer, we can test it out.”

* * *

The Old King did not look happy to see Goll. 

The guards were surprisingly accommodating. He had _not_ expected that they wouldn’t even bat an eye at his companion, given how they had welcomed him on his first visit to the castle, where he announced his intentions. They led him right to the throne room this time, didn’t even demand an explanation as to why he dared show up empty-handed. 

Goll kept his eyes on the King as he stood from his throne, taking a few limping steps. The man, old and bent from age and a life’s worth of injuries, still was an imposing presence. And although younger and stronger, also imposing, and not one of the King’s subjects, Goll dropped to a knee when they were within arms’ reach of one another.

It might pay to be polite. Or things would go horribly awry. Still, unlike a lot of his compatriots from the North, Goll could behave himself.

“I am afraid I wasn’t able to rescue your daughter.” Goll said, head bowed. “I hunted the kidnapper to his tower and slaughtered my way up to his observatory and then back down to his dungeon, but I could not find her.”

The memory of the battle forced him to suppress a smile. That had been a fight. The kind they wrote songs of—no, the kind they wrote _legends_ of. The northern barbarian come south to save a princess, prophesized to marry a mighty warrior who rescued her form peril? The story itself would have been worth it… a bride and kingdom didn’t exactly drive Goll away.

Alas, he could not find her.

The King began to say something, but Goll cut him off. It wasn’t proper protocol, but this _grand civilized man_ had to let a ‘barbarian’ have his poor manners right? He needed to let the man know that he had done all he could. He gestured to the woman at his side. “I found this creature in the tower. She believed that the Princess had been given as tribute to a tribe of bandits. She aided me in hunting down the bandits, but we could not find your daughter.”

‘This creature’ tilted her head at being referred to as ‘this creature’. In the warmth of the throne room she had ditched all but a single layer of clothes--a revealing two-piece outfit the wizard had apparently shoved her in upon kidnapping her. With the tail, the bottoms didn't fit right, and the top, skimpy as it was, was too big for the flat-chested reptile woman. She was a head taller than Goll or the king, which made her two heads taller than the average courtier. Despite the rough woman’s voice, her face was that of a snake, with a ruff or mane of hair down her neck. Tall yet slender, she balanced on taloned feet and a long tail. 

Assuming they survived the next fifteen minutes, Goll would have to apologize. She had aided him in tracking and fighting several other outlaws. At first, the serpent woman had been content to hang back, like she was judging him in battle, but after one or two scraps she eagerly rushed ahead of him and fought well. She was a great companion. Still, in such a court as this, he was a barbarian outsider, and she was ‘this creature’, both presumably barely tolerable to most of the courtiers, all staring with rapt attention. You had to play to the royals’ stereotypes.

The King scowled at him. He expected the next words to be a death sentence for his failure—he’d then fight it out with the royal guards and escape, wouldn’t be the first time _that_ happened. 

Instead the King’s shoulders rose and fell with a sigh, and he, more annoyed than angry or distraught asked “What did I tell you about my daughter?”

Not much. “She had a birthma…”

The King cut him off before he could describe the shape of the mark on her father’s side, turning towards the serpent woman. “And why did you not _tell him_?”

“Your excellency, the prophecy said a ‘great warrior’ would come to save me.” She said, with none of the gravelly quality she had in all of her conversations with Goll. “And I was locked in a mine so I couldn’t see him fight, and I wanted to…”

Wait… what? He turned and looked at her, and when she saw she had his attention, stretched with her arms above her head; he noticed a patch of discolored scales at her side, somewhat vaguely like the birthmark that the King had shown him on his side, that he said was a family trait. Huh.

“So… you decided to lead him on a quest to rescue _you_.” The King said. Some anger crept in, the minor kind, of a man who long suffered the petty trickery of a loved one. He looked Goll over, disapprovingly, then glanced back at the Princess. “Just… could you have escaped on your own?”

She was _very_ strong and could move pretty silently, Goll had noticed when they were hunting bandits. “Well, I can’t very well marry _myself._ ”

“So… first Northerner to show up, you decide to drag along to hunt bandits.” The King pinched the bridge of his nose. “Because the prophecy said you would marry a ‘great warrior’ who saved you.”

“And I think he’s good enough to qualify as a 'great warrior'.” She nodded.

 _Good enough_? That actually hurt. Goll was still trying to get things straight in his head. Obviosuly the sorcerer had transformed her into a serpent as part of an elaborate curse? But if so, why did she still have the mark? And why did the King recognize her? And… the guards were all plainly amused at Goll explaining that no, this serpent woman had _urgent_ news about the princess.

It seems he was not in on the joke.

The King turned to back Goll. Before he could say a thing, the serpent woman interjected. “And before you say a cutting remark about ‘great warriors’ versus anything else, that is what the prophecy said. And you know what happens when you fight a prophecy…”

“Yes, I remember the _incident_.” The King sighed. Just his mentioning ‘incident’ caused a bard to collapse into a swoon. “And, my dear daughter, I was merely going to contrast ‘great warriors’ with ‘an observant child’ or ‘a fairly smart dog’. By the gods, coudn’t check her for a birthmark…”

Goll had been told that the princess had a birthmark. The King had not deigned inform him that she also had scales and could spit venom. The Princess leaned in close to Goll, and whispered, _quite loudly_ , that “He’s just upset. We worried him with that side trip to the bandit camps.”

The King, apparently resigned to having his daughter marry someone he thought less of than an observant child or a smart dog, shrugged. “Warrior, you have proved your mettle, and shall have my daughter’s hand in marriage.”

“Aye.” Goll said. Okay… so Princess Atroxa was always a snake-woman. Hm… a lot of things made a bit more sense in retrospect. While on his way to the castle the first time, he had asked if the Princess was attractive and was met with noncommittal noises by locals in the tavern—he just assumed she wasn’t necessarily pretty. But… did everyone in this kingdom have no reaction to the princess being a reptile?

“The wedding will not be held until spring. My wife, Queen Adamantea sleeps during cold winters such as this one, and will not wake until the thaw.” The King said, heading back to his throne. A few courtiers, apparently in on the joke, were grinning wide. The serpent woman… Princess Atroxa didn’t much care for the cold either, burying herself in more and more layers at each camp they stopped at. And at night, when there was no battle or violence, she would huddle close to him.

Goll took in a deep breath, absentmindedly studying a tapestry. A young man, obviously the Old King before he was old or a king, vanquishing a serpent the size of a ship. Actually… maybe it was just terrible knitting, but the way they were grappling was less _violent_ and more… _tender_? And the queen was sleeping through an entire winter. And he vaguely recalled a tavern keeper offhandedly mentioning the kidnapped princess had her mother’s eyes…

 _Oh_.

The King made some more proclamations, before sitting down, waving his hands, and saying “You may take your leave.”

The next five minutes were a rush as Atroxa took him by the arm and dragged him out of the throne room, past some well-dressed fops offering congratulations, matrons swearing they had all been worried sick when Atroxa hadn’t come back. “I… apologize for the deception.”

“It’s… fine.” Goll did _not_ like being played for a fool, _but_ … “I got a few good fights out of this, and I didn’t fail the quest.”

“I just… one time, a few kidnappings ago, the guy takes one look and was all ‘die monster’.” She said, bitterly. “He wasn’t that good of a warrior…”

“Wait… _a few kidnappings ago_?”

“I’m the only princess in the kingdom, and we have a wizard infestation.” She shrugged, then shoved him forward, into a group of women. One of tutted over the state of Goll’s dress and grooming. Atroxa nodded, as he was preened over and evaluated. “Bathe him and bring him to my chambers.”

Then, turning to look at him, eye-to-eye, she said “After all, you want to be presentable for royalty.”

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Goll was damp, naked, and in a room the size of the house he grew up in. Apparently, the royal tailor had not been summoned for the bathing and bringing process, and the leather armor he’d been wearing was _somewhere else_. The room was half library, half trophy room, with a large window near the ceiling and a bed directly underneath it.

Goll was still wondering over the events of the past week. Okay… so there were signs that maybe he should’ve expected this. But in fairness, a lot of confusion could have been allayed by the Old King saying ‘my daughter has dark hair, scales of gold, grey, and brown, and a tail’, or ‘my daughter hunts bears’, or ‘last time my daughter was kidnapped—funny how that happened frequently—she got bored two weeks in and broke out’.

That last bit one of the ladies-in-waiting had said to another while combing his hair.

The door swung open and she stepped in, the ragged clothes she’d been wearing in the wizard’s tower replaced with what he assumed was an elegant dress. At least he assumed it was an elegant dress—he really had no clue. She studied him intently, unblinkingly. He _should’ve_ been used to it, but now that he realized she’d been sizing him up as a future husband…

…Goll almost wished he had some pants.

Mainly because thinking about their journey, a _lot_ of the huddling for warmth Princess Atroxa had been doing seemed a lot less platonic. And… well, he might’ve had some thoughts about that. And those thoughts were provoking a _reaction_. One she was noticing. “My _hero_.”

And with that, she was out of the dress. Lanky, tall, utterly inhuman. She loomed over him taloned hand winding through his hair. “I… if you… I know I’m not what you expected…”

While _true_ … in a lot of ways she was a step up. She was not the typical princess, but that included liking hunting, being impressive in a fight, and… well the scales and venom and tail and claws were _different_ , but he’d had plenty of _different_ experiences. 

She let out a squeal when he grabbed her about the waist and tossed her over his shoulder, then headed for the bed. Splayed out on her back, she looked up at him; conveying confusion despite the serpentine snout and unblinkingly wide eyes. Shrugging, he put one foot on the end of the bed, leaning over it, and “I made assumptions. They were wrong. I’m not complaining about being wrong.”

That was about as far as he got when something strong coiled around his foot and _yanked_ , dragging him onto the bed. Her tail. They wrestled top furs, bed was big enough that they managed to avoid rolling off as they grappled. 

“I let you win.” Goll finally grumbled, with a Princess stitting atop his chest, one of his legs hooked under one of her arms, wrists lashed together by her tail. A clawed hand stroked the beard at the side of his face

"Okay." She giggled, loosening her grip and fallen to the side, dramatically miming a terrific wound. "Legends will speak of this night. You vanquished the mighty serpent, and then spent the rest of the night with the princess." 

She giggled.

At least the second part of that sentence was true.


End file.
